Protestant creeds had clearly affirmed that _nothing possessed authority_ which _was not in Scripture_: in a short time, Protestant theologians--following an impulse common to all Christian communions--define more sharply the identity of what is authoritative with the letter of Scripture, _and call these entire contents dogmas_. Here then, under Protestant scholasticism (Lutheran and Reformed), we have the first perfectly definite conception of dogma, and the most definite ever reached. Dogma is the whole text of the Bible, doctrinal, historical, scientific, or what not. Thus dogma is _revealed_ and is _infallibly_ true. Dogma is doctrine, viz. that body of doctrines and related facts which God Himself has propounded for dogmatic faith. Every true dogma, says Johann Gerhard[12]--the most representative figure of Lutheran scholasticism--occurs in plain terms somewhere in Scripture.
Over against these sweeping assumptions and deductions, the Roman Catholic Church had to build up its own statement of the basis of belief. Its early controversialists--like Driedo or Cardinal Bellarmine--meet assertions such as Gerhard's with a flat denial. The great dogmas are not, literally and verbally, in the Bible. Along with the Bible we must accept unwritten traditions; the Council of Trent makes this perfectly clear. But not any and every tradition; only such as the church stamps with her approval. And that raises the question whether the church has not a further part to play? A. M. Fairbairn holds that D. Petavius's great work _De theologicis dogmatibus_ (especially the 1st vol., 1644) made the word "dogma" current for _doctrines which were authoritative as formulated by the church_. We must keep in mind, however, that the question is not simply one as to the meaning of a word. The equation holds, more firmly than ever; dogma=the contents of faith. It has to be established on the Roman Catholic side that faith (or dogma; the two are inseparable) deals with divine truths historically revealed long ago but now administered with authority, according to God's will, by the church. The Englishman Henry Holden (see above), the Frenchman Veronius (François Veron, S.J., 1575-1649) in his _Règle générale de la foy catholique_ (1652), the German Philipp Neri Chrismann,[13] in his _Regula fidei catholicae et collectio dogmatum credendorum_ (1792),[14] all work at this task. Dogmas or articles of faith (taken as synonymous) depend upon revelation in Scripture or tradition, as confirmed by the church whether acting in general councils or through the pope (in some undefined way; Holden)--in general councils or by universal consent (Chrismann; of bishops? the definite Gallican theory?). Veronius is willing to waive the difficult point of church infallibility as the Council of Trent did not define it. Holden insists strongly upon infallibility. Church traditions are infallible; and church dogmas reach us (from the original revelation) through an infallible medium, the Catholic Church, which the Protestants sadly lack. In Chrismann the word "dogma" has superseded the word "article"; Holden uses both, though "article" has the preponderance. All three writers seek to draw a sharp line round what is "of faith." Hence in Chrismann (who is in other respects the most definite of the three) we have a view of dogma almost as clear-cut as that of the Protestant schoolmen. Dogmas are _revealed_; dogmas are _infallible_; the church is infallible on dogmas (for this statement he cites Muratori) _and on nothing else_.